


Mayhap (one death of Button House that may never be solved)

by DiademSerpent



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Lord Byron is mentioned a bit, Murder, Suicide, pure idiocy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 20:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiademSerpent/pseuds/DiademSerpent
Summary: The Thorne family bought the land, which also meant the house that stood upon it was theirs. It remained a family home for quite some time, at least until the only son of the family died on the grounds. However, no one can quite answer the question of "How exactly did he die?"(a fic that explores some possibilities, and some that may not have happened.)





	Mayhap (one death of Button House that may never be solved)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing for fun, hope you enjoy! Warnings are mainly for the obvious case of dealing with Ghosts, and also of speculating deaths.

The house was old, and the land it was on was even older. It would, much much later, be known as the Button House, but it had not been known as that at the time. Only another Tudor Mansion, in another great stretch of land, and another rich family to buy it. That was, perhaps, the reason very few people cared when the Thornes moved in. Another family with old money to flaunt and time to waste on an old house and its old tapestries and the old carvings set into the old walls.

What made the Thornes stand out in the end, was also what made them leave. The death of a son, after all, was a very difficult thing to get over.

It is, rather obviously worse, when one considers that it took several days for the body to be found, and by then there was nothing but confusion.  
(You see, by then the creatures and the animals had got to it)

 

Sometimes, the villagers would rave about it. It was the kind of thing that naturally lent itself to conspiracy. Drunk off their heads with cries of-I saw what did it! It was a cat but large as a horse, with flaming skin and stripes all down its sides like a cage of hell upon it! It snatched the boy and tore him to pieces, it did! Or- That house is haunted! Its got the witch inside it, there was people burnt for that before! Now she won't let the poor ghosts go, I've seen it with my own two eyes! They’d pass out later, and deny saying anything, but it’d stay at the back of peoples minds like a bad dream. What if there was a witch within that house. What if ghosts populated its walls.

 

Perhaps, it was whispered in the higher circles, poor Thomas shot himself. Maybe he sat in the grounds and held his head in his hands and sighed- placed the gun upon his chest and cocked and fired and shot through it.  
The house could have finally driven him mad, with the flickering candles and lights, the sounds no one else could hear. It could have been the crying from the pantry, or the groaning of the floorboards, or the creaking of the doors. It could have been the scratching sounds of animals that had made their home there and were unwilling to relent this house to any other. It could have been the feeling of eyes, of being watched, that haunted each room of the building. Many people are lost that way, after all, disturbed by things beyond their minds and driven mad.

It could have been a girl that he shot himself for. He could have been full of love, and of affection and praise, but his full heart could have been turned away. In his sorrow and his sadness, he may have turned the gun upon himself, for maybe without her love his life had no further meaning. If it was heartbreak, some sighed, he must have confessed and found his love one-sided, and in dismay walked into the fields where sitting in the sun his heart just ceased to beat. And the wind may have ruffled his hair just so and the river played a mournful tune, for the poor boy who may have fallen in love and died for it, broken by a breaking heart. (That Duff girl, some would say, with her long dark hair. Or the Leigh one, it must have been her)

 

It could have been a duel, the common people would say, and later many historians would argue. It had to have been! What is more romantic than a man who died in a duel for his true love's hand? Or a man who died for his honor? Or if he died for the riches kept within the house? Maybe it was over poetry- or no it was over a song- perhaps the novel someone had cruelly stolen from him. The bloodstains proved it, they’d say, and point to the dirt that smeared his shirt, and the things that ate away his flesh, and the time it must take for such things and how the man must have fallen. The dueling two must have met, their seconds on hand, at the moment when the sun was high. They’d walked their ten paces and shot and fell, but Thomas must have fallen harder. A more vital wound- his gun had jammed. Maybe the gunpowder was damp, maybe the sun glared into his eyes and his aim was shot, maybe he’d even let the other shoot him, for at the last second he realized that the girl would never love a man who murdered another just for her hand. He had to have been challenged, such a sweet man would never have asked for a duel. He’d been angered into challenging some other. He’d been impulsive and challenged a man much older

(Lord Byron, some would say, and read his poetry and what remained of Thomas’ notes and highlight several lines in violent red. But they admit there is not enough evidence, and only ghosts could truly mark Byron guilty.)

 

It could have been murder, some seethed. The police and the family- they must have covered it up. The body had to tell more of a story- the evidence couldn't be so weak. The gunpowder! The bullet, the gun, the way he was shot, something. There must be more to add to the story, more than the fact that a young poet is dead and that's all that can be said.  
He could have been shot in the back! Look the fire pattern could prove it- his assailant could have ambushed him in the middle of the grounds and fired upon him. For motives of money, maybe, some that was meant to dwell within the house. To silence the Thorne- it could have been. Had he been spouting treasonous words? Or just those unfavorable to certain parties? Could it be his silence they hoped to buy with a bullet and a gun?  
He might have gotten stabbed, with a hand held tight against his mouth and threats whispered close to his ear. For any motive- it may have happened. It could have been two friends out for a walk when one, in a fit of rage, brutally attacked the other and left his bleeding corpse for the birds. It could have been any number of things.

 

It could have been poison. Slipped to him by a servant, or the lord, or the lady of the house. He could have consumed it himself, or a friend could have offered it, or he may not have even noticed. He could have stumbled into the fields, half dazed half dead, and collapsed to the ground. His airways could have closed up, his heart could have stopped, his tongue may have slipped back as he choked. The birds could have pecked later, and the foxes could have ripped, and the rains could have washed the poison-laced blood far away. (And no one would have known, except those that committed the deed.)

After all, the family moved away so quickly, left the house so rapidly. They must have accepted the death too easily, let things go too easily. They didn't put enough effort in, or enough thought, they didn't consider things as much as they should have. They should have pushed for justice! Their son was dead and they just move away, as if the memory would be forgotten as easily as moving locations. Their name faded into obscurity and with it so did the death of their only son. (He should haunt them, some would whisper. They deserve it.)

It could have, they’d say in the shadows where no one looked and no one heard like it was controversial information, just been illness. The flu, or syphilis, or gout, or any number of things. Maybe the Thornes didn’t want their reputation on the line, or to look weak with a sickly son, and decided it would be better to have one dead. Maybe he’d had enough of the sickness and shot himself. It could have been that he passed away, peacefully as those sickly could, within the night. And when morning came the servants saw, and fearing for the cry of murder had whisked him onto the lands, where the creatures quickly hid all signs. Maybe the disguise of murder, or suicide, had hoped to bring the Thornes some attention that they sorely missed.

 

Many years later, but very rarely, people would whisper, that man could have been a great poet. It was a shame what happened to him. He didn't deserve it. They'll shake their heads and look up as if into heaven and sigh, like something had been lost deeply from their lives. All for a man that they had never known, and would never know, and that predated them by years. As if they are imagining a world where he had lived, where some intervention had made the difference between life and death of uncertain causes. As if they are wondering, how easily a death could have been avoided if all circumstances had been known. Or, at the very least, if some spirits could be put to rest.

But the world will never know what truly happened to Thomas Thorne, in the halls that stood before Button House

**Author's Note:**

> Many years later, Alison will come across an article on a website somewhere and read it, and then she will stop and stare and scroll back up to read it again. She might laugh, a little, and she might scoff, a lot, but by the end she'll be filled with a dark sense of curiosity. (She will regret it not much later, when she asks Thomas how he died and ends up falling asleep in the middle of the story.)


End file.
